I grew up a Yankee fan, I favor Pitchers whenever possible, I am a stathead, and my dream job is to be a GM for an MLB franchise. In the summer, I go to MLB games and catch baseballs. In the winter, I write about what teams are doing to get better or worse. I try to be positive and unbiased in my writing, but that isn't always possible when evaluating teams truthfully.

4/24/11 Diamondbacks at Mets: Citi Field

Today was the first day of trying a new strategy. I first went out to left field but once I got there, I saw that the season ticket holder bp field spot had actually grown:

On Friday, it stopped before the Shea sticker on the wall. Here it covers a whole new section.

As you can tell by where I took this picture from, I decided that I would go to right field because no one was there and the Mets were going against a righty pitcher in Armando Galaraga (more people taking bp left handed).

There I got rejected in my request for a ball from five different players and a bullpen catcher in three different languages (Ouch!). Yeah, most of them *did* hear me. I got laughed at by Ryota Igarashi and his translator, flat out denied by DJ Carrasco (although it occurs to me that he might not understand spanish as he was born in Arizona), and probably not heard by R.A. Dickey and Dave Racaniello.

Back to left field… I came back to left field as the Diamondbacks started hitting and the season ticket holders started to vacate the field. I wish I had been there for Mets bp as although there were not many balls thrown or hit I forget that with some bp before people get there, there are now easter eggs to be found.

Even with the elapsed time this:

was the view to my left.

This to my right:

but the person who shagged the most balls by far in the outfield, J.J. Putz, did not throw a single ball into the stands (while I was there). Here he can actually be seen asking for a ball from another player so that he can throw it in:

(He’s the one in red)

Couple that with the fact that the Diamondbacks only hit two Home Runs while I was there and you have a slow day in straight away left. My first ball actually came when I saw a player hit a line drive to left center, ran over and was rewarded by Chris Young (of the Diamondbacks) for being the only D-Backs “fan” in that section for ball #1 on the day.

While taking the picture of that ball is when my camera died so the rest of the entry is writing.

My next ball came when Gerrardo Parra cam across a ball, was about to throw the ball back, and heard someone that actually knew his name ask him for a ball in Spanish. That fan would be me. So he tossed me the ball for #2 on the day.

Nothing else came my way for the rest of the day because of Mr.Putz and his crew of Barry Enright and David Hernandez. I was satisfied but did not want to be stuck in left field as the Mets would be 2/3 lefty and the D-Backs had 4 lefty hitters. So at 12:20 I made my way over to foul ground to go for third out and foul balls.

The very first inning I got Xavier Nady’s third out ball for ball#3. Getting that so quickly made me skeptical that I would get another so I moved back a little and played foul balls but despite the fact that it was Easter Sunday and only 22,232 fans showed up it was not reflected in the field level seats. There were no balls that I had a realistic chance of getting.

Then a foul ball dribbled down the line, the ballboy picked it up, tossed it to Don Baylor, the D-Back’s hitting coach, who tossed it to me after the inning ended as I was the only one who recognized him as “Don” instead of “Mr.Baylor” or “Number 25″. I then handed this ball to a girl who had been racing up to the dugout every inning with her glove but had come up empty every time that far. For those keeping score at home, that would be ball #4 on the day.

And Presto!I had turned a slightly below average day into a slightly above average day.

The game was even more surprising as the Mets swept the Diamondbacks by pouring on the runs and made it 4 straight.(?)

Diamondbacks 4 Mets 8

Stats:

4 Balls at This Game (3 Pictured because I gave one away)

Number 76-79 on the Career:

18 balls in 7 games = 2.57 balls per game

32 straight games with at least 1 ball

19 straight games at Citi Field with at least 1 ball

4 balls* 22,232 fans= 88,928 competition factor

Time at game: 10:26-4:05= 5 hours and 39 minutes

Now this is tentative on my Fordham Prep baseball schedule but the plan as of now is to be at Yankee Stadium Tuesday through Thursday and possibly Friday Saturday (the Fordham Prep schedule has conflicting information. One way I can go. The other I can’t.) So I’ll go to my game today and update this tomorrow. That would be this entry. I don’t think I’ll create a separate entry for this information

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Ballparks on a Budget
Ever want to go to a baseball game outside of your local team but don’t want to empty the bank? Alicia Barnhart’s your girl with Ballparks on a Budget. She should know how to spend wisely in going to games because, well, she’s been to them all. Just last

Dodger Blue World
Just a great blog written by dedicated Dodger super-fan Emma Amaya.

Minoring In Baseball
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A MUST-read for any MiLB afficionados, or even many MLB fans. Malcolm MacMillan goes to different ballparks all over and details his visit on the blog and writes tips for anyone going to that ballpark on his website (which can be found on the blog’s homep

The Next White Sox GM
If you were a baseball mind growing up, you may have gotten a comment from an elder female family member (usually grandma) saying, “You should be the one to run the team with all the knowledge you’ve got about baseball.” Well, here’s a kid who might just

The Unbiased MLB Fan
Matt Huddleston doesn’t root for the teams; he roots for the players. I wish I could say more, but I suspect any other explanation of his blog would be a multi-centennial-word ordeal.

Three Up, Three Down
One would assume not getting into the MLB Fan Cave is a sad experience. (Well, at least I would; I’ve never been old enough to apply.) However, this group of fans turned that usually-sad experience and turned it into a great blog where there are just a sl

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Observing Baseball Classics

"The Baseball" Book Review
In this entry I reviewed/summarized the entirety of the book “The Baseball: Stunts, Scandals, and Secrets Beneath the Stitches” written by Zack Hample.

10/19/10 ALCS: Yankee Stadium
Sure I had no clue how to write it, but this was my first ballhawking entry ever and my only of 2010, so it falls under the category “classic”

Ballhawk Charities 2012
Where I went over the four ballhawk charities I had heard of at the beginning of the season as a way of helping them out by getting the word out.

Case Study on Morality in Baseball
A research paper I did way back in the summer of 2010. I don’t necessarily agree with everything I wrote back then anymore, but it does add an interesting perspective to things especially in today’s steroid talk.

Collected Baseball Knick-knacks
Quite simply: pretty much everything baseball-related that I had collected and managed to keep ahold of as of November, 20, 2011.

Dissecting/Deconstructing Baseballs
I’ve taken apart several baseballs before, and it was fun, so I decided to make a video of me taking apart a baseball and adding tips for other people to do so too.

Favorite MLB Players
I did probably one of my funner videos on who my favorite players were from the present day, when I first started watching baseball, and my favorite player that I never saw play at all.

Houlihan Park Tour and Snagging Analysis
This is my high school, Fordham Prep,’s home field, which being the manager of the varsity team for three years, I spent proabably more games here than at any other baseball field. So when I returned to my high school for a day, I took a quick tour of the

Observing Baseball Trivia
See the description of the link two links above, but modify it slightly so it fits this entry’s title.

Pitching Aces in the Playoffs
My first ever “real” entry that I ever wrote back on the surplus of star pitchers in the 2010 playoffs. It was pretty good considering I knew nothing about blogging, or writing in general for that matter.

Pure Genius
This is just me explaining how the Phillies got three aces of pitchers; nothing fancy. But it was me showing my first flash of general manager mind to the world, so that’s why I like it.

Sabermetrics (the explanation)
This was me explaining some simple sabermetric statistics for the people of the world who have heard of the stats but never really knew what significance they had/have over the more common metrics. I take pride in this because it can potentially educate s

Survey of Adults Perception of Baseball
I surveyed a bunch of my teacher as to which baseball player was there favorite; both in and outside of New York. It’s a bit more complex than that, but the only way to understand is to read the entry.

Tour Target Field in the Snow
Target Field is in Minnesota, so it only felt fitting that I should take at least one day to tour it while it was buried in the snow. And that’s what this entry was: a video of me going around Target Field while it was snowing and there was a ton of snow

Weird Observing Baseball Facts and Records
I may yet do this every year…and it would then become its own link category–but for the meantime–there is only one set of Observing Baseball Facts and Records, so it definitely goes under “Observing Baseball Classics”.

Blast from the Baseball Past

8/24/08 Dodgers at Phillies: Citizens Bank Park
My second ever game to CBP that ended with Pedro Feliz hitting a three-run walk-off home run while my dad and I were in the car because we had to catch a flight to Detroit seven hours later that same day in New York.

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